[Lexicog] salutations and leave-takings

[Mali Translation]

Cami, greetings!

As you work in Africa as myself, you know the absolute importance of
greeting someone here.  And just a short "Hi" is not enough.
Our Western fast-paced life-style  has led us to shorten that most important
part of social interaction. If one does not greet
someone first, one might as well forget about starting a conversation.
Even if languages are not rich in greetings or in the length of greetings,
there must be at least a non-verbal way of
acknowledging a person one meets, like eye contact.

Blessings,

Fritz


  <
  But these languages have other ways of greeting. I was really surprised to
read that there are actually languages that have no form of greeting!!!! In
Mayogo, the language I studied, the most common word one uses to greet
someone is the equivalent of "I see you" which can be used any time of the
day. The morning greeting is "your eyes are open?" or "are you up?"; the day
greeting is "have you spent the day?"; the afternoon greeting is "you are
coming back?"(generally from the field). The answer to all these would be
either the equivalent of "yes" or just restating what the other said or
simply "mmmmm".

  If I were to generalize, many Congolese languages, when greeting or having
small talk basically state the obvious like "are you here?" "yes, I'm here".
But I have to say that greetings is of utmost importance for Congolese
people in general. And one cannot just say "hallo" and leave, one has to
stay and converse for a minimum of 5 to 10 minutes. Otherwise you are
defying the other and are being very rude.

  <
  Cami Borza
  SIL-ECG

  Wayne Leman <wayne_leman at sil.org> wrote:
    For many of us, it would seem reasonable to assume that salutations and
    leave-takings would be universal. Yet, my own experience indicates that
    neither are. Cheyenne, the language I work with, has neither an
indigenous
    salutation or leave-taking. In recent times, Cheyennes have borrowed, so
now
    has loan translations which translate back to English as "Good morning,"
    "Good day", "Good evening", and "I'll see you again later." But those
who
    think about such things often recognize that they come from English. And
I
    suspect that they use these loan translations more with non-Cheyennes
and in
    "bilingual education Cheyenne" (taught in school classes) than they do
in
    their normal contacts with one another.

    So, how about you? Are you familiar with languages which lack indigenous
    salutations or leave-takings?


    Wayne Leman
    Cheyenne dictionary project




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